Of course, if you're playing just by reading the spoilers, then you could be stupid, I suppose. But no one who figures out NetHack on their own (by that I mean, "ascends without cheating") could really be a total moron, with the possible exception of my roommate last year, who did it by playing basically non-stop for his entire first semester.

Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure he sabotaged at least one of my ascendable games. I came home once after a long night of drunken carousing (actually, I was having dinner with my family) to find that my computer was shut off, a circumstance which should never occur as long as I'm paying my utilities and I'm not upgrading the machine. The aforementioned roommate had finally passed out after a nine-hour NetHack marathon (I'm guessing) and was sprawled out on his bed. I woke him to ask why my machine was off (did I mention he never left the room, either?) and he replied "it started making a weird noise, so I turned it off."

Hmm...I had a level 18 elven wizard, loaded with great stuff, on level 25 in Gehennom...no trace of that game was ever found.

I sort of lost the will to keep playing after that incident. He ascended two more characters the following day, and I gave up for good. I modified the source and made it so his characters always started with tins of rottenWizard of Yendor meat. Yeah, I got back at him good. Yep...